The following projects have been completed to date, to find out more about these projects, please click on the photographs.

Miner's Statue and Memorial Gardens Cwmyrdderch Community Gardens

St Pauls Church Cwm Scouts

OTHER COMPLETED PROJECTS

Tirzah Tots - This is a group providing recreation for young children. With the help of Cwm Community care, they were able to obtain funding for an I.T suite for the children.

Cwm Schools - Advised them how to obtain funding for the installation of an outdoor classroom and wildlife area.

Cwm Allotments - Landscaping of grounds adjacent to the allotments

ONGOING PROJECTS - In conjunction with Keep Wales Tidy and Tidy Towns, developing a Wet and Wildlife area on derelict ground.

Our Projects

FUTURE PROJECTS

There are two future projects we are looking at, subject to feasibility studies :-

Project 1- Developing the Grade 2 listed building and coal level on the mountainside above the site of the old Marine Colliery.

This listed building is a Colliery Furnace Ventilation Shaft and Coal level and looking at the history is dated back to 830–1840’s and appears to be the only one of its kind in the UK

We have trimmed some vegetation to be able to view this Building. We are at present in liaison with the Welsh Heritage Office, CADW and Blaenau Gwent Borough Council Heritage Section.

The Llandafal Colliery Furnace Ventilation Shaft

On the hillside above the cleared site of Marine Colliery (nprn 33571) is a squat circular brick ventilation chimney and shaft, measuring approximately 4.2m diameter and 5.66m high, built in the 1840s or 1850s and disused by 1876. It is the only example of this once common pre-fan type of shaft ventilation known to survive in Wales. It is a Grade 2 listed building and is on CADW No.15836.

Cadw is the Welsh Government’s historic environment service working for an accessible and well-protected historic environment for Wales - Cadw is a Welsh word meaning ‘to keep’ or ‘to protect’.

On Wednesday 26th October 2011, Mervyn Robbins of Cwm Community Care, accompanied by Thom Board of Keep Wales Tidy and Alyson Tippings of B.G.C.B.C Tourism Officer carried out a site visit through the Marine Colliery site in a southerly direction then in a westerly direction over a bridge then south until we joined the incline that took us to the ventilation shaft and level. After viewing the ventilation shaft, continued up the level and joined the Manmoel road before going back to Cwm and the mining memorial garden.

The area around the shaft was overgrown with bracken despite being cleared by Probation team. There were many warning signs and physical barriers to walkers questioning site access.

Aims

• To conserve ventilation shaft

• To secure All Year Round access to site

• To develop circular walk

• To identify links for longer walks in the area

• To provide on site interpretation

• To produce walk information in electronic format for web site and printed material.

Actions

1.To confirm whole of route has legal access

2.To confirm ownership of site and route

3.Secure permission to undertake works to improve access and promote site.

4.To develop long term solution to bracken along route and around site

5.To develop conservation plan for Shaft and adjacent features

6.To develop circular walking routes and link

7.To develop appropriate on site interpretation

8.To develop appropriate promotion for the site and walking/cycling routes.

Project 2 - Formation of the Ebbw Fawr Trail

Look at the possibility of forming a footpath opposite the Miners Statue and travelling along a path which can eventually lead to open green spaces and continue towards Aberbeeg to join the Ebbw Fach Trail- See below.

To do this a walkway bridge will have to be built over the Culvert created from the bypass improvements.

Discussions are ongoing with Rights of Way and B.G.C.B.C.

The Ebbw Fach Trail - The trail links together fourteen community Green Spaces that offer a variety of amenities from Beaufort Hill Woodlands in the North to Llanhilleth in the South - A total of almost 16 kilometres. To find out more about the Ebbw Fach Trail, please click on their logo to the right.

OCTOBER 2014

A few months ago, we received an email from Angharad Rosser from Dawnus, the company who are constructing the mechanical link between the Main Square of The Works and land adjoining David Taylor’s Garage, Ebbw Vale - to find out more about the company and the project, please click on the link below.

They were keen to become involved in some community activities and I wanted to know of a project that they could help with, and a few weeks ago they provided 3 men, free of charge, to cut back the foliage etc around the furnace chimney and Llandafal Level.

The photographs below show the level after the work had been completed and an Interpretation Panel installed. In the first photograph are Andy Feming ( BGCBC Rights-of-way) , Mervyn Robbins and Peter ???? (Dawnus)